Consequences
by GirlonaBridge
Summary: A chance meeting in a supermarket leads to more than either party expected from a simple shopping trip. Harsh words and even harsher truths.


**I realise this isn't going to win me any popularity contests, but it has been niggling at me... **

* * *

It was the girl's voice he recognised first.

'Mum, can we have Coco Pops?'

He froze behind a corner display of biscuits on offer. Surely he was mistaken. Dozens of teenagers must sound like that. But when her mum replied, he knew there was no mistake. He would know that voice anywhere.

'No. We've got three different types of cereal already.'

What were the chances, he wondered, pretending to examine a box of Animal biscuits. Of all the supermarkets in all of Manchester. Ok, well maybe it wasn't that mad, but he'd never bumped into any of the team out shopping before. He fiddled with the flap of the box and peeked round the corner again, uncertain whether or not to approach. Mother and daughter were still wrangling over the cereal question.

'They're good for you. Look, see here, it says all the vitamins and minerals they've got in them. See, it's got a table.'

'I don't care. They've got chocolate on them. How good for you can anything with chocolate on be?'

'You eat chocolate.'

'But not for breakfast. No, sorry love, but you're not having them.'

'It's the holidays.'

'Taisie.'

As her Mum's voice took on a dangerous warning tone, the girl put one hand on her hip. He had to admit, he was impressed. That tone had made him turn tail and do as he was told more than once in the past.

'It's got vouchers on it for Alton Towers.'

'What?' Janet's face was a picture.

'Two for one. See?'

'When have I got the time to take you to Alton Towers?'

'Me Dad could take us.'

Janet treated her younger daughter to a death-glare for a couple of seconds. Taisie's exuberance wilted slightly. Then Janet crossed her arms, narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips, and Taisie brightened at once, recognising the signs that her Mum was about to cut a deal.

'You can have them as a treat, not a breakfast cereal, IF...' She cut off Taisie's victory dance with an outstretched arm. 'If you swap them for either the crisps or the chocolate biscuits.'

'Deal.' Taisie snatched the bag of crisps out the trolley and shot off down the aisle before there could be any changing of minds. 'I'll just put these back,' she yelled over her shoulder.

Janet shook her head and was just straightening her glasses to consult her shopping list when a touch on her arm made her turn.

'Hello Scotty.'

Her eyes went huge. She opened her mouth to speak then stopped herself and twisted round to check behind her. He frowned in confusion. She turned back and noticed and her mouth set a little tighter.

'I don't want Taisie to see you, I'm sure you'll appreciate why.' She waited while he worked through another moment of confusion then dropped his eyes as he caught on. He had forgotten the kid had been a sort of witness to him and Rachel's arrival at Janet's house that night. Rachel had said she'd heard them, that Janet had been "banging on" about it but it had slipped his mind.

'Sorry,' he muttered.

'What do you want Kevin?' Janet crossed her arms again.

'I uh...' He shoved his hands in his pockets.

'Only, I'm not really supposed to have anything to do with you.'

'Yeah I know. I just... I didn't know you were gonna be here. I just saw you and thought...'

He searched her face for a sign that she was softening. Janet raised her eyebrows.

'I'm sorry Scotty. For everything that happened.'

'That happened?' Her eyes widened again and her eyebrows disappeared behind the frames of her enormous glasses. 'Things didn't just happen Kevin. You did things. You made choices. You chose to sell information to the press. Confidential, sensitive information. That didn't just happen.'

'Yeah, I know,' he mumbled, screwing his hands even tighter into the lining of his jacket.

'I don't think you do know.'

'Look just... forget it, this was a bad idea.' He started to back away. 'I just wanted to say that I am, you know... sorry... for doing it. For letting you down.' He paused a few steps back, still hopeful.

'And what Kevin? What did you expect would happen next?'

'Dunno.' He shrugged. She took a step closer, lowering her voice as an elderly couple entered the aisle and paused in front of the porridge oats.

'Were you expecting some kind of pat on the head? Did you think I'd say, "that's ok Kevin, you lied to us, you betrayed us, you screwed the whole team over, royally, but I forgive you because you said sorry"?'

'Woah.' Kevin put his hands out to defend himself as Janet stepped closer still and he felt the anger radiating from her words. 'Don't be like that.'

'Don't... You... What?... I'm...' She started and swallowed back several different sentences before she managed to get a hold on herself. Janet turned away for moment and gripped the handle of her trolley. It was taking all of her self-control not to yell at him like she had yelled at Ade in their worst moments, and she really did not want to have a screaming row in the middle of Tesco, especially when Taisie might reappear at any moment. Kevin still dithered behind her, she could hear him, shifting his feet and jiggling the change in his pocket. She almost, almost walked away. That would probably be the best idea, she thought. But she couldn't just leave it like that, with him still giving her that kicked-puppy look as though he was the wronged party. She turned.

'You have no idea what you've done, do you? Not really. You don't understand the consequences your actions have had.'

He opened his mouth to protest but she shook her head.

'I don't want to hear it. I don't care why you did what you did. I don't give a monkey's. It was wrong. You knew it was wrong and you did it anyway.'

'I know, I know,' he tried but she cut him off again, continuing in a rapid undertone.

'You don't know. I don't think you have any idea how far-reaching the consequences of you mouthing off have been, already, or how catastrophic they could have been.' Janet could see Kevin start to shut down as he realised he was being lectured, the same way he always reacted to being disciplined for bad behaviour, and it only fuelled her anger.

'Gill nearly died.' Her voice rose in spite of herself and she snapped her mouth shut and glared at him. Finally, the shock seemed to be getting through.

'What?'

'As a consequence of your actions, a person is dead and Gill very easily could have been. Now I'm the first to say that every person makes their own choices, is responsible for their own choices, but sometimes, some people, vulnerable people, get so pushed into a hole by circumstances, so twisted inside out by the things that are done to them, that they are only capable of making very very bad decisions. And I'm not talking about you.'

Kevin stared at her, his mouth hanging open.

'I probably shouldn't be telling you this,' Janet muttered. 'I don't even know why I'm bothering but the fact is...' She took a deep breath and slowed her speech. 'The fact is Kevin, a lot of people have gone through a lot of pain and anguish that they wouldn't have had to go through if you had done your job properly and behaved like a decent human being.'

Janet rubbed her nose, suddenly conscious that they were still standing in a supermarket aisle between the boxes of cereal and packets of biscuits. Maybe she had gone too far. He looked shell-shocked. But then again, he needed to be told, he needed to learn. She shook her head. Would he ever learn responsibility? Consequences? She doubted it.

'I'm got to go.' There was Taisie, bouncing round the corner and stopping dead at the sight of him.

'Don't... don't do this again Kevin.'

She gripped her trolley and marched up to her daughter, hooking an arm round her and cajoling her along. Kevin stood there still.

Distantly, he heard Taisie start asking questions. 'Is that...?'

And Janet putting a stop to it. 'I don't want to talk about it. Come on.'

He wasn't entirely sure what had just happened to him. All he had come out for was milk, bread, biscuits, a couple of beers. And now... He wasn't sure how much of what Janet had said even made sense. Through his bewilderment, he was aware of a new feeling burning inside him. Not the old resentment that used to smoulder when Godzilla or Dodson or his old uniform Sergeant had a go at him. A fiercer and deeper shame burned inside him. Kevin blinked and realised that his eyes were damper than they ought to be. What a loser, he thought.


End file.
